Manufacture of circuit patterns of thin film transistors (TFT) etc. which are included in a display device typified by a liquid crystal display device (LCD) and a light-emitting display device (EL(Electro-Luminescence)) display device) has used a vacuum process which is carried out in such a status that an inside of a processing apparatus is in reduced pressure or vacuum, and a photolithography process in which a mask, which comprises a (photo) resist, is manufactured by a light exposure apparatus and an unnecessary portion is removed by etching. (See, Patent Document 1)
(Patent Document 1) JP-A-2002-359246 publication
The vacuum process requires air discharging means for forming a vacuum or reducing a pressure of a process chamber for carrying out film-formation, etching etc. for a substrate to be processed. The air discharging means is composed of a pump typified by a mechanical booster pump and a turbo molecular pump, an oil rotation pump etc., which are disposed outside a processing apparatus, means which manages, controls them, and also, piping and valves etc. which couples the pump and a processing chamber to configure an air discharging system. In order to lay out the equipment, a space for the air discharging system becomes necessary outside the processing apparatus, and costs for the same become also necessary. Further, since it is also necessary to mount equipment of the air discharging system to the processing apparatus itself, a size of the processing device becomes larger as compared to a thing on which the air discharging system is not mounted.
A photolithography process which has been used since a long time ago, for circuit pattern formation of thin film transistors etc., e.g., a photolithography process for wiring formation is carried out as follows. Firstly, a photosensitive resist (photo resist) is spin-coated on an electric conductive film which is film-formed on a substrate, and thereby, the resist is spread out on an whole surface of the electric conductive film. Next, light irradiation is carried out through a photo mask on which a pattern is formed by metal, to expose the resist to light. Subsequently, development and post bake are carried out, to form a resist pattern with a pattern shape of the photo mask. Further, by use of the resist which is formed in a pattern shape as a mask, etching processing is applied to the electric conductive film under the resist. Finally, the resist pattern, which is used as the mask, is peeled off, and thereby, it is possible to carry out etching of the electric conductive film, in a pattern shape formed on the photo mask, and a remaining electric conductive film is used as wiring.
However, in the vacuum process in the prior art, in connection with size growing of a meter square size of fifth, sixth generations or later, a volumetric of a process chamber also expands. Here, the fifth generation means a mother glass substrate size of 1000×1200 mm2, and the sixth generation means a mother glass substrate size of 1400×1600 mm2. On this account, in order to run the process chamber into a vacuum or reduced pressure status, larger-sized air discharging system becomes necessary, and also, time necessary for air discharge also increases. Further, also in a cost phase, equipment cost and maintenance cost etc. of the air discharging system mount up. In addition, also in a case of replacing the chamber with gas such as nitrogen, a much more amount of gas becomes necessary because of volume increase of the chamber, which has an influence on production cost. Further, in connection with size growing of the substrate, huge running costs are required for power supply etc., and therefore, it results in increase of environment burdens.
Also, in a process which uses a photolithography process in the prior art, e.g., a wiring manufacturing process, a large portion of a coated film (resist, metal, semiconductor etc.) which is film-formed on a whole surface of the substrate is removed by etching, and a proportion that wiring etc. remain on the substrate, has been a range of several to several dozen %. On the occasion of forming a resist film by spin coating, approximately 95% has been wasted. In short, a most part of a material is to be thrown away, which not only has an influence on production cost, but also invites increase of environmental burdens. Such trend becomes obvious as a substrate, which flows on a production line, grows in size.